Environmental Speakers Program

Lessons in Sustainability | An Explorer’s Tale

What can a terrifying crocodile attack, a year at sea in a tiny boat, contracting blood poisoning and malaria, and getting hit by a car and left for dead with two broken legs teach us about global sustainability?

Touted by the UK Daily Mail as “the most remarkable adventurer in the world today,” environmental speaker Jason Lewis Lewis draws insights from his historic circumnavigation of the world using only human power – biking, hiking, and inline skating five continents, and kayaking, swimming, rowing, and pedalling a boat across the oceans – to offer choices we can all make to safeguard a healthy planet for future generations.

The secret, he maintains, is learning how to live within a closed system, like the craft he pedalled across the Atlantic and Pacific, resembling the Earth in miniature. Just as one is isolated by thousands of square miles of empty ocean, so the other is cut off by outer space. Importing supplies to avoid running out of resources isn’t an option. Neither is evacuating people to relieve population pressure. Survival, therefore, depends upon living within finite means.

Weaving in amusing anecdotes and gripping tales of adventure, Lewis scales humanity’s formidable dilemma down to a more tangible level, offering an alternative to the present reality of rising sea levels, accelerating species extinctions, and extreme weather events.

TESTIMONIALS | ENVIRONMENTAL SPEAKERS PROGRAM

CATAMOUNT INSTITUTE
“Catamount Institute was honored and grateful to have Jason Lewis as keynote speaker at our Colorado Sustainability Conference, a statewide conference on sustainability issues. Jason’s incredible story impacted each attendee and motivated everyone to stay committed to the work they are doing in their individual fields. Even now, months after the conference, we receive comments about how much Jason’s story impacted people and is one of the great successes from the 2012 conference.” —Christopher Aaby, Marketing & Communications Director

UNIVERSITY of COLORADO COLORADO SPRINGS
“As environmental speakers go, Jason’s message will appeal whether you are interested in adventure and exploration or sustainability and living life with more meaning. His rapport and ability to engage with people, particularly college-age students, is outstanding. His incredible journey, his commitment and perseverance to achieving his dreams, and the way that he lives his life post-adventure are an inspiration to people of all ages. As a sustainability professional in a rapidly changing world and an inveterate world traveler, I can say that Jason is indeed a hero for our times and his message should not be missed.” —Kevin Gilford, Organizer, Assistant Sustainability Director